


Rocky Road Sunday

by Acaeria



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: A little bit of gore, But mostly angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hallucinations, Intrusive Thoughts, birthday fic, i promise this isn't as dark as the tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25939189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acaeria/pseuds/Acaeria
Summary: Jason huffs in frustration. “You can’t just make this easy for me?”“Nope.” The kid pops the p, swinging his legs obnoxiously.“Not even on my birthday?”“Like we ever got anything on our birthday."Jason takes himself out for a birthday treat.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 53





	Rocky Road Sunday

**Author's Note:**

> HBD Jason!!!
> 
> i have a lot of feelings about the Robin!Jason Jason hallucinates in RHatO (2016), and this is apparently where i chose to get those feelings out.
> 
> RHatO (2016) also references that Harley was Jason's therapist while he was at Arkham; while I don't think their timelines line up at all for that, I kind of love the idea, so there's a reference to that here as well.

The ghost is here again.

_ Not a ghost _ , he tells himself, because Dr Quinzel had told him to stop validating his hallucinations. So: the hallucination is here again. It doesn’t make it much better, because whatever it is, the kid is still glaring at him from where he’s perched on the kitchen counter. There’s a trickle of blood running down his forehead, and Jason bites back a comment about staining the countertops— it’s not real, after all.

“Why are you here?” he asks pointedly, watching the hallucination from the corner of his eye as he sets about making breakfast. 

“Why am I ever here?” the hallucination replies. Jason huffs in frustration.

“You can’t just make this easy for me?”

“Nope.” The kid pops the p, swinging his legs obnoxiously.

“Not even on my birthday?” he asks, knowing that it won’t garner him any sympathy, but feeling like he has the right to grumble despite that.

“Like we ever got anything on our birthday,” the kid says. “It’s technically my birthday too, you know.”

“You’re fifteen.”

“So?”

“You’re always fifteen. You’ll always be fifteen. What’s the point in celebrating your birthday?”

“What’s the point in celebrating yours?” the kid fires back. “It’s not like anyone cares that you’ve survived another year. In fact, they’ll probably be disappointed. Even Bruce. Especially—“

“Shut up!” Jason snaps, turning and throwing a knife straight at the kid. It, of course, goes straight through him, leaving behind a bloody, gory hole. The kid raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, real mature. Are you sure I’m the teenager here?”

Jason finishes pouring his cereal and turns back around to fully face the kid as he slams a spoonful into his mouth, and tries not to wince as he gets a good look at the kid. It’s bad today: alongside the hole Jason’s just left in his head, his skull is cracked open, his right arm is twisted, clearly broken in multiple places, and the Robin uniform has been bled through in numerous places, including a large, dark patch on his abdomen. His left foot is twisted all the way backwards.

The kid notices him looking and scowls. “You try getting beaten half to death,” he snaps. 

“I have,” Jason replies around a mouthful of cereal.

“Maybe you should try again. Who knows, maybe this time, it’ll stick!”

Jason chews angrily, and decides to ignore the kid. He eats the rest of his cereal in silence, refusing to even look in the hallucination’s direction.

“Oh, real mature,” the hallucination taunts. “Sure, go on, ignore me. Just like everyone ignored you, right? Nobody ever wanted to listen to what you had to say.” Spoon, chew, swallow, repeat. The cereal tastes like ash in his mouth. “Another year on this earth, and what do you have to show for it? No friends. No family. No one to love, or to love you. You’re going to go out tonight and shoot someone just to feel alive. What a sad, pathetic existence. Wouldn’t it be better to just stop?”

“Just because you’re dead,” Jason grinds out, “doesn’t mean I have to be.”

“You’re me, though,” the kid says. “And I’m you. So, yeah, if I’m dead, you should be too.”

“I like living,” Jason shoots back.

“Why?”

“Because I do! And you’re not going to convince me otherwise. So give up and save me the damn headache.” He can already feel it coming on, a dull pounding in his temples. By the end of the day he’ll be flat out in bed with a migraine– so much for his plans to patrol tonight.

“I’m not going anywhere,” the hallucination says, petulant, and Jason slams his bowl down on the counter, half-eaten cereal swirling in discoloured milk.

“Well, I am,” he says. “Feel free to stay here. There’s leftovers in the fridge.”

He grabs his wallet, jacket and keys as the kid grumbles. “That’s not funny,” he mutters, jumping down from the counter and stumbling on his bad foot. Jason can see him limping after him as he leaves his apartment building and out into the streets of Gotham. 

“Where are we going?” the hallucination asks as Jason hails a bus headed down the road. Jason ignores him as he climbs onboard, heading to the back of the bus and sitting down. He keeps a careful eye on the other passengers, but none of them seem particularly suspicious. Well, at least half of them are probably criminals, but that’s normal for this part of Gotham. None of them are any risk for him.

“My ribs hurt,” the hallucination says, sitting next to him. “I think they’re all broken. Wanna feel?” Jason doesn’t. The kid pushes a flat hand against his own chest and lets out a pained cry. “Yeah, all broken,” he wheezes. “Do you remember what it feels like? To be this broken? For everything to hurt?”

Jason grits his teeth. He does. The kid  _ knows _ that, knows that all of his pain is only Jason’s memory; knows that Jason is feeling the phantom pains even now. 

He breathes slowly, in and out. It’s fine. He’s fine. He’s alive and in Gotham and it is his birthday and he is not fifteen and dying in a warehouse on the wrong side of the world. 

He stands up abruptly and presses the bell, nearly running down the aisle and shouting a quick, “Thanks!” to the driver as he bounds off. He’s disappointed when the hallucination manages to hop off after him just as the doors are closing. Sometimes he’s able to outrun the kid, and can escape him for the rest of the day by doing so. 

“Do you know how hard it is to run on a fucked-up foot?” the kid complains.

“Yes,” Jason replies, and then turns and strides down the street. The kid hurries to catch up, cursing and groaning under his breath at the pain. Jason pretends like his own ankle isn’t sending twinges of phantom pain up his own leg.

“Why are we here?” the kid asks as Jason turns into the parking lot of the drive-through ice cream parlour he and Bruce had frequented during his Robin days.

“It’s my birthday,” Jason replies, “I want ice cream. Is that a crime?”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Alone, though?”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I wish I were alone,” he snides.

He enters the parlour, which is relatively empty at this time in the morning– there’s a father and two kids sharing a jumbo survey in one corner, and a couple of teenagers on a date giggling over something sat in the centre of the room. He heads over to the counter and smiles at the cashier, a tired-looking twenty-something who smiles back despite the air that she’s giving off like she doesn’t really want to be here.

“Hi, can I take your order?” she chirps.

“Yeah, two rocky road sundaes?” Jason says. She nods, inputting the information.

“Anything else?”

“That’s good, thank you.”

“Alright, that’ll be $13.26.”

Jason pays with a handful of cash and then makes his way over to a booth by the window. There’s a large decal on the glass in the shape of a bat, proclaiming  _ THE HOME OF BATMAN & ROBIN’S FAVOURITE ICE CREAM _ . Despite everything, it still makes him smile to see.

The kid slides into the booth opposite him. “Why’d you order two?”

“Maybe I’m hungry,” Jason replies. The kid raises an eyebrow.

“For ice cream? You’ll be sick, dummy.”

Jason shrugs, but doesn’t respond as the waitress brings over the ice cream. After putting down the sundaes, she asks, tone light and teasing, “This all for you? Or are you waiting for a special someone?”

Jason shrugs slightly as he pulls his own sundae closer. “I used to come here when I was younger. A uh, a kid I knew, he’s... not with us anymore. But it’s his birthday, and he always loved this place, so...”

The waitress looks deeply sympathetic, and also like she regrets asking. “That’s a lovely sentiment,” she says. “Enjoy your ice cream, honey.”

She leaves, and Jason tucks in. The kid is staring at the sundae Jason brought for him, a strange look on his face.

“You know I can’t eat this, right?” he asks.

“I know,” Jason agrees with a shrug. “Felt rude not to buy you one, though.”

Then, the hallucination does something Jason has never seen him do before: he smiles.

“Thanks,” he says, voice soft. “I appreciate it.”

“Happy birthday, Jason,” Jason says to the kid.

“Yeah,” the kid replies, his hands wrapped around the sundae glass, eyeing it wistfully. “Happy birthday.”

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to hmu on tumblr @fliipclaw (main) or @bullyingbatman (dc side)!


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